The closest alternative to Mistral Small 3 is Mistral Medium 3.5 — comparable intelligence (39.2 vs —); for a cheaper option, Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) runs Free/M vs $0.050/M; for more speed, Morph V3 Large hits 2.6k t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Mistral Medium 3.5 is the closest alternative to Mistral Small 3, with an Intelligence Index of 39.2 (Mistral Small 3 scores —) at $1.50 per million input tokens.
Yes — Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) costs Free per million input tokens versus $0.050 for Mistral Small 3, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Mistral Small 3 — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.